Musings of the Mind
by Lcsaf
Summary: When all of the world is sleeping, I stay up and think..."
1. Kagome

Musings of the Mind

A/U: I don't where this came from, just read it.

-Kagome

We got two more shards today. The youkai that had them wasn't very strong, I guess that the shards weren't very helpful to it because they were no bigger than wood splinters. This brings the grand total on my bottle to five. We shouldn't have too many more to collect now.

I really should head back and study for a test I have that's coming up in three days. But I think I'll stay here sitting alone on the grassy cliff a little longer and watch the stars. Besides, we're only a day and a half west of the well...which is a first. Inu-Yasha usually tries to avoid his half brother's territory--though I'm sure it has nothing to do with fear. He can admit he's afraid, but I've never actually SEEN Inu-Yasha show fear of anything.

Except tears.

For all that talk and heritage of being a big; tough demon, Inu-Yasha's just a big softie. He can't stand to see someone cry. He gets all flustered and pitiful looking; his ears droop and his face is all scrunched up in frustration while his amber eyes widen with something akin to horror. It's really quite funny to watch sometimes. Admitantly, I shouldn't use my crocodile tears on Inu-Yasha as often as I do, but short of sitting him what else am I suppose to do? I have to go back to my time at SOME point.

Tokyo. I live in guru city of electronics in the era of technology on the verge of the twenty-first century. Where I come from I can gain access to the rest of the world with just a click of the mouse. I can eat cold strawberry ice-cream with Eri, Yuka and Ayumi in the summer while we pretend to study. I live in a time where ramen is insignificant enough to be considered a snack rather than the meal Inu-Yasha makes it out to be.

There I go again thinking about Inu-Yasha. My thoughts these days always seem to center around him and consequently my alternate lifestyle in the Sengoku Jidai. Although, in truth I probably spend more time here in the past than in my era, so I guess that my regular lifestyle is really my alternate and my alternate in the past is really my regular....if that makes any sense. It makes perfect sense in its own twisted way I suppose.

When it all boils down, I guess I'm in the Sengoku Jidai era often enough that I've begun to think of this place as a second home. A place to be welcomed back to with such a warm and cherished feeling, no matter how long I've been gone everyone greets me with open arms, give or take a few gropes and smiles. It almost makes me feel guilty for leaving so often. Inu-Yasha was right when he said I have an obligation to the past. I mean I DID break the jewel in the first place, however accidental that was and reincarnate or not I AM the Shikon no Tama no miko and it is my responsibility to collect the shards and make it whole and pure again. NOT Kikyou's. But my obligation is more than just the jewel shards, I have to help my friends with their vengence. We have to kill Naraku before Miroku's curse kills him and we have to release Kohaku from Naraku's control for Sango's sake and sanity, but in the end he will die too. We will have to take the shard from his back and without that he won't survive. Poor Sango, she and Kohaku are too young to have to go through something like this.

We all are.

I turned sixteen six months ago and Sango is going to be seventeen soon and she claims Kohaku would have turned twelve just last month. Miroku is nineteen now, going on twenty this winter. I hope he makes it, the future is so unsure for him. Shippo is still a kit in youkai years and he can't be much older than Souta, mentally. I don't know how old Inu-Yasha is, but Myouga says he's reaching his reaching his first century in a couple of decades. Still, for all that age Inu-Yasha acts like a junior highschooler. I guess that's a fair estimate of how old he should be in youkai years. Everyone here is so young, in his or her own right not a person among us is older than twenty, all of my friends are orphans. And still Miroku, Sango, Inu-Yasha and even Shippo are some of the strongest people I've ever met, overcoming obsticles and pain to get where they are now. They deserve to get their revenge. Like I said before, the kids of this time are really amazing.

Suddenly I feel so petty. While everyone here fights for the shards, I'm off on my side of the well, worrying about my next exam. I have it made in the 1990's, yeah my tests are annoying, but nothing perilous. How can that compare to the fight to survive, which everyone in the past seems to do on a day to day basis? I don't know.

What I DO know is that tomorrow is another day. Inu-Yasha will want us up at the crack of dawn to go searching for another shard and Sango will slap Miroku for touching her. Shippo will annoy Inu-Yasha and...well, tomorrow's another day. Right now, this thinking will be saved for another night, I have to get back to camp, because, man, I am one tired miko....

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And that's that. I dunno, I read enough OOC/romance inner thought fics to wonder if anyone's ever REALLY thought about the psyches of the cast. Like it? Loathe it? Let me know. Button's down there.


	2. InuYasha

DISCLAIMER: Inu-Yasha would be wearing less clothing if he was mine.

A/N: Of all the things to make an update on, I pick this. How odd, no even reads this anyways. Oh well, I guess my serious side is coming out more and more. Don't worry, Bathtime is being worked on as often as possible. And SJHS will get updated again one of these days. I promise...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

-Inu-Yasha

We're sleeping in the Western Lands tonight. Heh. These lands USED to be my old man's when he was alive. Now it looks like that bastard Sesshoumaru has taken over. So, that doesn't make him the REAL Great Demon of the West, does it? Kami! I fuckin' hope not, his ego's big enough already. We aren't too far into the territory, maybe half a day's journey, if that. Sesshoumaru shouldn't be able to catch up with us from the forte or whatever it is he's living in, but I'm sleeping with both eyes open tonight.

I don't know WHY he just randomly decides to hate me. He just does. At least *I* have a fuckin' reason to hate him. I mean there's nothing like waking up from a fifty-year nap to find someone's wanting to off you for something you have. It didn't used to be like this. I remember being just a pup and hanging around Sesshoumaru in the halls of the palace. He really didn't like it, but at least he tolerated me back then. I guess I didn't make it easy on him, cuz-DAMN! I was an ANNOYING little shit. Still, he was my older brother--the one who taught me to catch and kill dinner the right way. Now, he wants to catch and kill me for my sword. Fucking greedy bastard, it's not like he doesn't have two swords of his own--Tensaiga and Toujikin. Besides, if our father wanted Sesshoumaru to have the Tetsusaiga, he would have GIVEN it to that little prick.

Why does Sesshoumaru want the Tetsusaiga anyway? He can't use it. At least, not without a human arm. And since he seems to be convinced that humans are a fucking disgusting race, I really can't imagine him being able to stand that arm for long. Anyways, the Tetsusaiga's MINE! It was meant for ME.

*snort* This sword hilt is all I have left of my old man. I wasn't lying when I told Ryuukossei that I didn't even remember my old man's face. My mother told me he died when I was just a pup. I've seen pictures of him, but they're just paintings by humans who have only seen him in his demon form and they aren't even all that good. If I really wanted to see what my dad looked like in that form I can just go hunt down Sesshoumaru and piss him off badly enough to get him to transform. But...Myouga-jiji says that I kinda look like him too. Kagome says that she bets we share the same complexion, whatever the hell that means. 

I remember more of my mother than my old man. She was beautiful, strong and smart. She taught me all the lessons of the court, reading; writing; numbers; literature; dancing and music. Myouga-jiji told me that she was a human princess before she was my father's mate, I guess that makes sense with her obsessions with all those stupid lessons. I remember more about her physical appearance than anything else, it's easy when all I have to do is find a reflective surface on the night the moon hides its face. I look like her, Kagome says so; I can kind of see what she means. The dark hair and violet eyes, though the features suit her more than me. 

In ways she was a lot like Kikyou. That's what I noticed about Kikyou first--she reminded me of my mother. They were both dignified, refined and respected; they shared the same small smiles and auras of sadness. Kikyou, like my mother, was lonely. We both were, by that time both of us were orphans so early in our lives. We were dependent on ourselves and no-one else if we wanted to survive. I guess that's why we turned to each other.

It wasn't love.

I don't think it ever was. I know that now, even if I didn't back then. I liked Kikyou a lot, more than any other girl I'd ever met. I guess we shared empathy and maybe pity on Kikyou's part as much as that thought disgusts me. I don't want or need pity from anyone or anything. We shared a lot of things in common; trust wasn't one of 'em. Actually, she probably trusted me less that I did her, and why not? I was the demon that wanted the Shikon on Tama that she purified and protected. 

Ironically, the thing that killed her was what made her so good at what she did in the first place. I can't count the number of times she caught me doing something she thought I shouldn't or stuck me to a tree by the hem of my haori with her arrows. She was a powerful miko; she killed hundreds of youkai without breaking a sweat by arrows or by purifying. She lived to protect that damn jewel and her village, and then she died. 

And I did too.

Then came Kagome. Heh. The girl from the future is connected to my past. How fucked up is that? 

She says she comes from about 500 years into the future. That's a long time, will I live to see the time she lives in without having to hop in the well to bring her back? Her time is so different, demons live in disguise in her time, I see them walking the streets as humans. And the people in the future live under the rule of ma..."machines" as Kagome calls them. Metal horse-less carriages; moving picture boxes, wired messengers with buttons and a "machine" that shows moving pictures and page-less books and repeats that godawful noise she calls music. I forgot what she called that one, but it has a glass surface like the moving picture boxes, only smaller and a p...puh..pul-as-tic board with many buttons. I don't understand why she likes that thing so much, it's so damn noisy with the clicking and clacking of the buttons and that other thing she moves with her hand. And even then it makes a strange humming and other noises like it's trying to breathe or something. 

Usually, she isn't sitting in front of the breathing machine; she's at her personal table studying for one of her tests. She says they're important in her time. Keh! The humans in her time have a fucked up sense of priorities. Doesn't that wench realize that we're on the other side fighting for our lives (well, Sango, Miroku and Shippo are)? She's always running off to the well when she's got a responsibility here. We need her HERE with us finding the shards and fighting the demons. 

Kagome fighting? I remember when that statement would have made me fall out of the tree because I was laughing too hard. And not because of some magical force. From the start Kagome was useless as a fighter of any sort; she was too scared and too weak, but it's to be expected after all, she IS a human. She's gotten better now, I mean at least she can fire a damn arrow now (Kami! What a nightmare THAT use to be), she doesn't flinch at the opponents anymore and she isn't cowering behind me anymore like that brat Shippo. And then there's the times when her powers just explode and I start wondering again if she's the reincarnation of Kikyou.

It's easy to see why anyone would think they were part of each other. You just have to LOOK at them to see similarities. Hell, they even smell alike, like sisters, even. But then...all you have to do is look at them to see the differences. Kagome's hair is soft and wavy, Kikyou's hair's straight. Kikyou was a warrior and Kagome is like a nurse. 

Kikyou is Kikyou and Kagome is Kagome.

I can't think on this anymore until we've completed the Shikon no Tama. That damn jewel has brought so much misery with it. Sometimes I think that I just want Kagome to purify it out of existence so no one else has to go through this hell again. But too many people are depending on this: Kagome, me, Sango, Kikyou. I'd say we should have it completed in a full moon cycle and a half, or what's left of the shards to find.

Then we gotta kill Naraku, for everyone. Sango wants vengeance and so do I, Miroku has to fight for his life...

I can hear them stirring from below. The sun should rise soon...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Inu-Yasha is probably the worst to write, I'm never sure weather to write him as an adult or the selfish teenager phase his brain seems to be stuck in. Tell how I did.


	3. Miroku

Musings of the Mind

Miroku

When I was younger I came to accept that fact that I was destined to die alone. I came to terms with that fact as I was forced to watch from afar in Uncle Mushin's arms as my father left this world.

But that's not how I want it to be. I want "to go down fighting" as Kagome-sama puts it. To not give into death easily and to be surrounded by the faces I've grown to know and care about.

When I was younger I heard Mushin telling my father that he wanted to spend his last hours in a monastery garden; surrounded by sakura trees in full bloom and the soothing sound of running water over smooth rocks. With a pretty woman by his side and a bottle of sake in his hand. I think that sounds like a fitting way to die.....for an old man.

Ever since I've fiery taiji-ya known as Sango, I've begun to realize that I could never be satisfied to just calmly wait for this life to end. Should I happen to die in battle--and by the looks of things, that's probably how it's going to be--I want to be in the midst of the fighting with Sango near. I want to leave this world knowing that it will be free of that black stain known as Naraku and it's counterpart, Onigumo. And should it be fated that the vortex is my destined demise, I hope to take a very large portion of the true Naraku with me.

However, at the same time, I hope that I--that ALL of us live to see the completion and purification of the jewel. I wish to live out a long and happy life with many children and a loving wife. Perhaps somewhere in Kaede-sama's village, which I've come to adopt as my second home. Or maybe Sango and I could begin to rebuild a taiji-ya village close to her old home. But I dare not speak seriously of any of these hopes to Sango. For now I can not promise her any happiness in the future.... only pain.

Much like the pain and solitude I felt watching my father disappear. I could not do that to her, I couldn't leave her alone with a child, unborn or otherwise. Because I know all too well the feeling of despair.

I was only ten when my father's vortex sucked him in. I remember the whipping wind from his hand- cold and biting. There were no real last words or parting wisdom, just "Run, Miroku!" and "Stay away!" The last thing I remember was the thunderous echo as my father ceased to exist. Mushin told me that I had to be knocked out because I wouldn't stop screaming hysterically. I woke up late the next day and ran outside to find the lasting mark my father's demise left on the earth.

I stayed with Mushin until I was fifteen. The grass in the crater had still not grown back when I left. I traveled from town to town, performing exorcisms in exchange for food, shelter and other goods for myself for the first year and a half.

I remember when I first met Hachi. It was the autumn of my sixteenth year, the weather was too nasty to be traveling in, let alone just standing out there. I found my tanuki friend in a tiny cave, being terrorized by an insect youkai. Of what species, I can't be sure, only that I know I've never seen one of that nature before. Dealing with that youkai gain me my first shard and a place to rest until the storm had passed—payment of saving the furry and damp creature. After introductions were made, Hachi told me of some well off towns further down the well treaded road. We struck a deal in that cave—a bit of acting on our parts for the towns' sake and we would have food and I could find places to sleep for the nights I was there. We've been a team ever since.

Well, until I met Kagome-sama and Inu-Yasha that is. Buddah must have smiled the day our paths crossed. Now, by chance of fate, my companions and I set out together to collect the shards that will lead us in our search for Naraku. 

I am content for us to be like this now, together and strong, though it is never certain what will happen next. Still, I can feel the painful tweak in my hand as the hellhole grows ever wider and I wonder how many more days I have left.

The sky has taken on the softest shade of grey and I can hear the first birds of the morning beginning to twitter. A good omen hopefully, I am always grateful to see another sunrise, I suppose that is why pre dawn is my favourite part of the day. The perfect time for self-reflections and to gather my thoughts. The embers have all but died in the fire and I use the end of my staff to stir them again, Kagome-sama and Sango will be pleased that there is still a fire left to cook and boil water with. I hear the trees rustle and know that Inu-Yasha will be wanting us to leave camp shortly after daybreak.

Sango sighs in her sleep and tenses slightly against Kirara. 

I allow myself a small smile. I reach out the cursed hand to wake her, perhaps this morning we can watch the sun rise together….

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

So, I guess that's that. 


End file.
